Regarding Artificial Intelligence... and Religion

Last night, my hubby and I went out for a much needed date, just the two of us, no kids. Gotta thank the parents for babysitting! We went on a 'high school' date, aka, cheap and cheerful, Taco Bell for dinner and a dollar movie. We saw Johnny Depp's new(ish) movie, Transcendence.

I'm one of those people who after watching a sci-fi movie, especially on the big screen, comes out of the theater feeling all, well, sci-fi-y. I'm the same with horror; first time I saw Final Destination, I drove home certain that street lights were flickering ominously and death was prowling around me to get its due. So after leaving a film about artificial intelligence, I began imagining my brain was a computer, with an uploadable consciousness.

We put on one of our current favorite albums for the drive home, Quiet Company's We Are All Where We Belong, a brilliant 'coming-out atheist' album. My mind started to wander...

"I know this is going to sound so cheesy, but in a way, it's like our brains really are computers, and all it takes is a little virus to deprogram the whole thing."

My husband, not finding this as cheesy as I feared, agreed. (Which is good, considering my programming knowledge is very old and probably obsolete, not having worked with data and coding in ten years.  In other words, please excuse any errors that may now follow.)  I started talking about the moment I specifically got 'infected' with the virus; the moment it dawned on me that Jesus Christ might not actually ever be coming back. I remember that exact moment so distinctly. And seeing it from a computing point of view, I started to imagine the so-called virus corrupting my original programming, slowly at first but eventually wiping out the system completely.

The moment I first considered that Jesus was not coming back was like opening a corrupted file. Over the following weeks and months, the belief system I'd held my whole life began to fall apart. It all started to unravel, like a computer virus scanning all my files and wiping them out. After three years, the system was completely wiped, gone, deleted. The faith that had been my operating system had been destroyed.

But a virus isn't right. A virus corrupts. I don't feel like what happened to me corrupted me. "What else could it be then," I asked my techie husband. "A factory reset?"

"More like an upgrade," he responded. Our default setting, he argued, IS religion. We from infancy anthropomorphize everything; it's the only way we understand the world. We tend to think that the world thinks like us, that everything has meaning or reason. Our ancient ancestors saw the sun and believed it had a spirit and a will. We believe bad things happen for a reason. We imagine that the universe works in a humanly rationale way. We want to make sense of why we are here, so we create divine beings to explain our existence, and we rely on this deity for order. Our factory settings kind of are religious.

It takes an upgrade, or perhaps a patch, to rise above that.

This, of course, is highly debatable, depending on what side of the 'program' you fall on. For religious people of all kinds, saying that religion is a factory setting is right! Of course, because God made us that way. God made us to need him. And as we go through life and discover this need for religion, we are pointed to God (or Ra or Allah or Brahma or whomever). To the religious, atheism (or agnosticism) is definitely a virus in the worst sense. A corruption to the system. Something in an email we don't want to open (so we don't open). We stay far away from viruses of doubt to ensure we keep the programs operating as they should, keep the system clean.

But to a non-believer, it's as I said earlier. It's an upgrade. It's taking a system that had faults to begin with and improving upon it. The original OS had some bugs, but there has been new software released that can improve the system's performance. However, you've got to open up that email with the instructions on how to compile the new or changed files yourself to get the patch.

For me, maybe that moment I first realized Jesus may not be coming back like the Bible said he would, wasn't so much a virus that corrupted my system, but a source code modification. How it got there, I'm not sure (was it an executable file, begging the question, IS there a manufacturer someone releasing patches? Are we all actually existing in a virtual reality like The Matrix?), but however it was executed, I'm glad it was. It has definitely improved my system's performance.

Or maybe the better way of saying it is, I've 'transcended'. Making my consciousness now uploadable. Will, Evelyn?

Conceal, Don't Feel

Like all things that get super popular super fast, the Disney movie Frozen has started to receive its inevitable backlash. People are finding all the plot holes, like the dodgy parenting and crazy acts of a crazy sister. And of course, people are sick of the songs, like "Let It Go" in particular.

But you know what? I loved the movie. And I love "Let It Go". And here's why.

First, let me state that I think it's just an adorable movie. It's entertaining, the characters are charming, Idina Menzel rocks my world and has done since playing Maureen in RENT. It's a kids' movie, so I don't worry much about why on earth a couple of parents would think it was wise to lock a kid up rather than teaching her how to control her powers. I love the message at the end that a) you don't need a man to save you and b) the act of true love that saved her was committed by her own love for her sister. Come on, it's a great message.

I just love it.

"Let It Go" is a great song. It's got all the Disney/Broadway key elements to it - passion, emotion, a a riveting crescendo, Idina Menzel. It's not about lesbianism (though even if it was, I'm cool with that) but about freeing oneself from the conformity forced upon them. In Elsa's case, it was the freedom to freeze a bunch of stuff without (she thinks) any retribution. And I suppose for a girl who realizes she's a lesbian, it's a song about the freedom to come out. (Though Elsa was not a lesbian. This just isn't in the movie. For me though, it's a song about letting go of religion.

I know I'm not alone in this. I know there are lots of other people who have been reduced to tears by the power of Elsa's words in this song in the context of "letting go" of the religious beliefs that they have been conforming to for years. I'm just going to go through this song, emboldening the lyrics that really touch me, and if necessary (though I'm sure you're smart enough to get the connections) adding some commentary on how it makes me feel in that context. Keeping in mind the song IS about freezing stuff, so you know, the "snow" would have to become metaphorical, which is actually still a pretty good metaphor for someone feeling stuck in a belief system and culture they can no longer accept for themselves. It's a pretty frozen place to be.

The snow glows white on the mountain tonight
Not a footprint to be seen.
A kingdom of isolation,
And it looks like I’m the queen.

The wind is howling like this swirling storm inside,
Couldn’t keep it in, heaven knows I tried

[Heaven KNOWS I tried. I tried for YEARS to contain the storm that was swirling inside me. Knowing I didn't really believe any of this anymore but refusing to accept it. I tried so hard, but eventually, I just couldn't bear the storm inside me any longer.]

Don’t let them in, don’t let them see,
Be the good girl you always have to be.
Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know,

[I wanted to be that good girl I'd always been - the girl who lead worship at church, who knew the Bible intimately, who spoke up at Bible studies and prayed out loud, who loved people and reached out to them. I didn't want anyone to know I wasn't that girl anymore.]

Well, now they know!

[Actually not too many know yet. Word is getting around though.]

Let it go, let it go
Can’t hold it back anymore,
Let it go, let it go
Turn away and slam the door!

I don’t care
What they’re going to say
Let the storm rage on,
The cold never bothered me anyway.

[I'd like it not to bother me, that is. It actually does.]

It’s funny how some distance
Makes everything seem small
And the fears that once controlled me
Can’t get to me at all.

[It's true. The further I get from it, the less I worry about it. The less I'm afraid of "hell", the less I'm worried about how people will treat me, the more I realize just how ludicrous Christianity, and all religion, is. Particularly poignant is how the "fears that once controlled me can't get to me at all" is - the threat of hell is horrifying and paralyzing, but the further away I get from it, the more I see it for what it is: manipulation.]

It’s time to see what I can do,
To test the limits and break through.
No right, no wrong, no rules for me,
I’m free!

[Without religion telling me what's right and wrong, I can finally accept what my heart has been telling me for years about right and wrong. Technically, without religion there is no actual "right and wrong"; that doesn't mean however that non-religious people have no morals. We are just willing to use critical thinking and humanitarian principles to inform what is ethical and fair. Like letting gay people get married.]

Let it go, let it go,
I am one with the wind and sky

[Sounds silly, but now that I see myself as a evolutionary development, I do feel more connected to the earth. We sprang from the earth, and we will return to the earth. It's kind of an amazing thing.]

Let it go, let it go,
You’ll never see me cry.

[Not true. But wouldn't it be nice if it were?]

Here I stand
And here I'll stay.
Let the storm rage on...

My power flurries through the air into the ground,
My soul is spiraling in frozen fractals all around,
And one thought crystallizes like an icy blast
I’m never going back,
The past is in the past!

[Can I get a non-religious AMEN to that?! It's the most freeing thought that I'm NEVER going back - the past is in the past!! Here's hoping I have at least another thirty years on earth to make up for the thirty years I lived in ignorance!]

Let it go, let it go,
And I'll rise like the break of dawn.
Let it go, let it go,
That perfect girl is gone.


[I don't have to be perfect! I can make mistakes! I will do my best as always to keep being the best me I can be, but now, I don't have a cosmic finger wagging at me every time I screw up or a book of rules to point out how supposedly broken I am inside. That perfect girl is gone; she left nothing but normal old me behind. Yes!]

Here I stand
In the light of day.
Let the storm rage on!
The cold never bothered me anyway.

[One day, one day soon, I'll stand in the light of day as an agnostic atheist. I'm still working on finding that courage within me.]


For so many years, I had the same Elsian (new word?) philosophy: Conceal, Don't Feel. "Put on a show; make one wrong move and everyone will know."  I concealed, not so much to myself or even to "God", but to everyone else, my doubts. I refused to feel how my doubts made me feel. Any time I allowed my feelings to spill over, I was drowned in my own tears, and drained afterwards from the emotional and mental distress. Losing my faith was utterly the most painful experience of my life. Having to conceal it so no one would know was exhausting. Keeping it to myself, refusing to feel it, refusing to "let it go" was isolating, like being locked in a dungeon all alone. The fear of what would happen if I "let it go" (aka hell) was more than I could bear.

Like Elsa, once I let go, everything changed. Even though she went through a rocky period before knowing how to "let it go" under control, she experienced freedom for the first time when she just let all that power explode around her. I know how Elsa felt, letting the storm rage on. It felt glorious.

So Long, Larry: The Tipping Scales of Veggie Tales

My 22 month old son pulled down the case of DVDs this afternoon and started flipping through them. He turned the page over and started giggling hysterically. He pointed to the disc causing him such pleasure and looked up at me to put in on for him. He had picked out Veggie Tales.

We've always loved Veggie Tales in this house. Wholesome, silly, a little bit clever, and always a hit with the kids. Silly Songs With Larry are some of the best children's songs around. I could sing Barbara Manatee all day long. It's a cute, harmless little children's program. Never have I thought of it as overly Christian or overly moralistic. That is, until I left Christianity.

Over the past six months, our family has been transitioning from a sincere, Bible-believing Christian family to a secular one. The process of facing our doubts about God and working through the deterioration of faith has been long and painful, and the decisions we've made along the way have not been made lightly. The decision to formally stop attending church, for example, was huge, stirring up issues with our extended families and putting us and our kids in an awkward place culturally. And there are still a lot of small decisions we are making on a daily basis. Small, seemingly innocuous decisions that create a lot of inner conflict for me, bringing up questions I've not yet realized I could ask.  

As I sat back in my over-sized arm chair watching Veggie Tales over the screen of my laptop, and more importantly, watching my three children watching Veggie Tales, I felt one of those little inner conflicts prodding me to attention.

The episode in particular was An Easter Carol, appropriate for this time of year. The story loosely resembles Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol and is about an Easter egg factory mogul who wants to demolish a local church and build a theme park 'Easterland' in its place. Or something like that. I never really paid too much attention. At the end of the day - apologies for spoilers - they help Ebenezer Nezzer to understand that the true meaning of Easter isn't eggs but the resurrection of Jesus.

Obviously, I knew this would be the story. It's a Christian Easter story. Of course the film would bring it all back around to the resurrection of Christ. But I'd never noticed before how in depth the story went. The 'ghost' of sorts, Hope, takes Mr Nezzer into the church that is to be demolished, and shows him the stained glass windows that depict the story of Jesus' death on the cross. She gives a long talk about how we are all sinners but Jesus took our sins upon him and was crucified on the cross. The scene is very emotional and dark, and Mr Nezzer doesn't see how this is a happy story at all. Then Hope explains that three days later, Jesus rose from the dead, and this is the hope that represents Easter.

My two older children watched fixedly. Even one of the neighborhood boys playing at our house was watching reverently. (My toddler son watched too, but I'm thinking he was more interested in the pretty colors.) I felt rather uncomfortable with the scenario.  This is one of those things I am still learning to wade through. Am I making too big a deal out of this?  I tried to think of the situation just like a Christmas movie depicting Santa as real. That analogy didn't help, though, seeing as I don't tell the children Santa is real either. Here my kids were being told by a lovable tomato and cucumber that all of this is very true. We don't believe it is true. Harmless? I just don't know.

We feel we have a lot of undoing to do, especially with our oldest child, who is seven. She has been raised in church and told by the church - and us, her parents - that Jesus died on the cross for her, that we are sinners and that belief in him will grant us eternal life in heaven, not hell. Slowly, we've been trying to shift this paradigm we've instilled in our kids. We want them to think for themselves, so we've never come right out and said, 'None of this is true.' Instead, we've asked them what they think, and we've accepted their answers, even when they have differed with our own.

Still, it's our responsibility to monitor what they are told and by whom, to the best of our ability. We don't take them to church anymore, because we don't want them being taught that the Bible is true by (well-meaning) Sunday School teachers. Veggie Tales has always been welcome in our home, and those cute little vegetables are pretty trustworthy, which makes me wonder if it's any less indoctrinating to have them teaching our kids about Jesus than a Sunday School teacher. For a seven year old and a five year old, and even, I guess, an almost two year old, distinguishing between truth and fiction is hard enough, and when it's being explained to you by a character you trust, even if it's only a cartoon, it's even harder to decipher.

We know Veggie Tales aren't going to bring our kids violence or smuttiness or bad language through our TV screens. But I'm wondering now if the show is as harmless as I always believed it to be, now that its message is one we know to be false?

Could it be time to say goodbye to our colorful cornucopia of garden produce who can hold objects with no arms, who make witty and adorable jokes, sing silly songs and dance with stuffed manatees, but also preach an ancient myth as absolute truth? Is it time to say So Long, Larry? TTFN, Tom?

Or am I making a big deal out of nothing?

The small, seemingly innocuous decisions.